Actor Ranveer Singh's video criticizing PM Modi is manipulated

What is the claim?

Just a day before the first phase of the 2024 general polls in India, a purported video of Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh is being shared on social media to claim that he criticized Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and seemingly endorsed the Indian National Congress (INC).

In the viral clip, the actor is seen talking to a journalist from news agency ANI and saying in Hindi, “This is Modi ji's purpose. His aim was to celebrate our sad lives, our fears, our unemployment, and inflation. India is heading towards an era of injustice at a rapid pace, but we should never forget to ask for our development and our justice. That’s why think before you cast your vote.” The video ends with a promotional message stating, “Vote for justice, vote for Congress.” (Translated from Hindi.) 

Several social media users shared the video, encouraging people to vote for Congress. Archived versions of such posts can be accessed here and here.

Screenshots of the posts on social media. (Source: X/Modified by Logically Facts)

However, we found that the viral clip has been manipulated and a fake audio has been overlaid on the actor's video. The actor neither criticized the prime minister nor endorsed Congress ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. Interestingly, the clip was also shared by INC Spokesperson Sujata Paul (archive here), who stated in the comments that it was a "deep fake video (sic)."

What is the source of the video?

We noticed that Singh was speaking to Indian news agency ANI. Taking a cue from this, we found the original version of the clip published on ANI News' YouTube channel on April 16, 2024, with the description, “Bollywood actor Ranveer Singh lauds PM Modi’s ‘Vikas Bhi, Virasat Bhi’ vision”.

In this slightly longer clip, the actor said, “This makes me so happy… This was Modi ji’s purpose. It was his aim to celebrate our rich cultural heritage, our history, and our legacy. Now as India is heading towards modernity at a rapid pace, we should never forget our roots and our cultural heritage.” The ANI video is 56 seconds long, and the first 36 seconds have been manipulated to create the fake election campaign clip. 

An extended version of the video, a 2:33-minute-long interview of Singh, was also published by ANI on X (formerly Twitter). The viral clip can be seen around 1:15 to 1:51 of the original video.

The interview was shot when Singh and Bollywood actor Kriti Sanon visited Varanasi on April 16. They offered prayers at the Kashi Vishwanath Temple and took a cruise ride on the Ganga. 

How was the viral video made?

The viral video was created by changing a few words from Singh's original audio. Singh actually said, “This was his aim to celebrate our rich cultural heritage, our history, and our legacy,” but in the viral video, this was changed to “His aim was to celebrate our sad lives, our fears, our unemployment, and inflation.”

The audio in the viral video clearly doesn’t match Singh’s lip movements, showing that an audio layer has been overlaid.

Recently, a similar manipulated clip of Bollywood actor Aamir Khan also went viral to create an impression that he encouraged voters to vote for the Congress party.

The verdict

A video of actor Ranveer Singh was manipulated using an AI voice clone to falsely claim that the actor endorsed Congress for the upcoming general polls. In the original video, he was actually seen praising Modi and did not express support for Congress.